Tim: I heard this recently, Norway’s 2012 Eurovision entry, and remembered I quite enjoyed it.
Tom: I have no memory of it at all!
Tim: Let’s revisit it, shall we?
Tom: You’d think I’d remember something that unfortunate. They’ve nicked the synths from Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction, the chorus from every late-90s Eurovision entrant, and the verse from… actually, I can’t remember the verse any more, and that’s probably for the best.
Tim: First of all, some context: in the category of ‘songs that qualified’, it couldn’t have done much (well, any) worse – it was tenth out of ten qualifiers from its semi-final, and in the final it was the single song that prevented us, with Engelbert Humperdinck (Engelbert Humperdinck, ffs), coming last, with 7 points to our 12.
Tom: The single saving grace is the chorus, but it’s very much a Traditional Chorus and those just don’t play well any more. As for why even Engelbert beat it…
Tim: Multiple reasons, probably: the vocals were weak, he looks like he’s just grabbed his clothes out of the dirty laundry basket, and the peculiar mix of genres meant that pretty much everybody would have at least one part they disliked. So, really: why on Earth was it chosen? And to that, I’ve no answer. Well, except that weirdly, I quite like it.